


One Star Awake

by JessaLRynn



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Samaria - Sharon Shinn
Genre: Angels, Crossover, F/M, Folk Music, Grief/Mourning, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 18:18:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6089781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessaLRynn/pseuds/JessaLRynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose, Jack thought, suddenly, the blow to his chest and his stomach stealing the air from his lungs entirely.  He had known they were close, known they belonged together.  But this, this was more than he even wanted to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Star Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Crossover Challenge at Then There's Us, this is my first entry, a micro-crossover with Sharon Shinn's _Archangel_
> 
> * * *

Jack watched the Doctor, sad-eyed and pale though he was, as he stared into the firelight. They were surrounded by the most beautiful people: dark-haired, dark-skinned, primitive people with the stars in their eyes and joy in their souls. A single golden-haired girl sat on a campstool some distance away from them, wrapped, quite literally, in the arms of an angel.  
  
This planet was affecting the Doctor strangely. He was fascinated with the people, the product of absurdly advanced genetic engineering he said, and yet so primitive they had no electric lighting. When they'd first landed here, they'd arrived on a spacecraft that orbited the planet, a spacecraft that it didn't take long to realize was also these people's devoutly worshipped god.  
  
The Doctor Jack had known, before the regeneration, before the Master and, most especially, before Canary Wharf, might have had several disagreeable things to say about the cargo cult society of this planet. This Doctor, though, was tired and lonely. Jack didn't know if he missed Martha or the Master more, but he thought he knew whom the Doctor missed the most. The night dark eyes followed the single star - the orbiting spaceship - a haunted expression trapped within them, like an insect in amber. He was almost sure the Doctor would interfere, but maybe not yet.  
  
They'd come here to make a decision, and had been invited to dinner by this group of kind, nomadic travelers as they made their way toward what looked to be one of the more promising cities. It was blue and bright, and Jack had thought they could make it there in another hour, but the Doctor had surprised him by choosing to accept the invitation. Then, he'd surprised Jack even more by diving in to help like he belonged here.  
  
Halfway through the preparations, the last of the guests had arrived, and the Doctor was rather proud of his earlier decision, because apparently they were quite the most important people on the planet. Still, he was just watching them, not doing anything else, all through the meal. Now, the campfire was burning and everyone was well fed and suddenly, the lovely girl and her beautiful, broad-winged husband rose and everyone gasped.  
  
Jack looked again to the melancholy Time Lord as the girl's voice exploded into song. The sound was at once earthy and ethereal, a high, crystalline noise that could shatter souls and warm even the lost heart of the man beside him. The Doctor smiled, as the girl's voice was joined seamlessly by her husband's, and the sound modulated into something like a prayer. The crystals on their arms glowed like the fire and Jack couldn't help but wonder if it burned them as they wove their voices together into a blanket over the crowd. It was, quite possibly, the most glorious sound he had ever heard.  
  
"Now you have seen true wonder," the woman next to him whispered to Jack as the crowd applauded ecstatically for the singers. He wondered if anyone would be brave enough to follow that, but he needn't have wondered at all. An old man rose and played some haunting tune on a reed pipe. Several very young girls joined their untrained voices to the pipe, and it was very hard to distinguish whether the sound came from the girls or the pipe.  
  
Three boys offered a beautiful melody, an old woman and a young woman sang a recitative from the other side of the fire. The woman next to Jack and the angel's bride offered up three beautiful little airs that were still quite solemn. Jack felt the power of this place wash over him, the glory of their everyday struggle, the intricacy of their delicate lives.  
  
The angel graced them with a glorious tenor solo, his voice like the singing of the stars. When he sat down, he drew his wife into his embrace and wrapped a wing around her almost completely. The Doctor, Jack noticed, was staring at them with no little envy in his blazing eyes.  
  
Jack himself sang a short, old, melancholy piece he'd learned awhile ago, trying to take the Doctor's mind off of his sorrow and turn it back to the present. His eyes were trained on the star that was the spaceship, but Jack thought that if they were focused anywhere, it was years ago and far away.  
  
With that same strange expression on his face, the Time Lord rose to his feet. Jack felt his jaw drop open. "I wish to tell you a story," the Doctor said quietly. They all studied him attentively, but none moreso than Jack, who was utterly fascinated with this unprecedented turn of events.  
  
The Doctor hummed a bar or two, his voice a moody dark tenor. His eyes got farther away and then he opened his mouth and sang, in that Scottish accent Jack had heard only a couple times over the past year.  
  
 _"My love said to me, my mother won't mind. And me father won't slight you for your lack of kind. Then she stepped away from me and this she did say, it will not be long, my love, 'til our wedding day."_  
  
Rose, Jack thought, suddenly, the blow to his chest and his stomach stealing the air from his lungs entirely. He had known they were close, known they belonged together. But this, this was more than he even wanted to know.  
  
 _"She stepped away from me, and she moved through the fair and fondly I watched her move here and move there. She went away homeward with one star awake as the swans in the evening move over the lake."_  
  
Tears started in the immortal man's eyes, and he didn't even try to stop them, let them pour unchecked down his face. He remembered how they used to be, under the lights of alien suns, as Rose flitted about with her shopping and her smile and the Doctor with his leather jacket and closed posture smiled down on her like some benevolent god - or a man in love. The ancient Time Lord stood just like that now, singing his hauntingly beautiful melody, not the least bit self-conscious, the words pouring from his lips as though they would reach her, even across the universe divide.  
  
 _"People say no two ever wed, but one has a sorrow that never was said. And she smiled as she passed me with her goods and her gear and that was the last that I saw of my dear."_  
  
That was the truth if ever a truth had been spoken. The Doctor's sorrow was soul-deep and endless, as perpetual as Jack's own life, and he never spoke of it, not if there was any way to avoid it at all. Given what had taken her away, Jack knew how deeply this song must be hurting right now.  
  
 _"I dreamt it last night that my true love came in. So softly she entered that her feet made no din. She came close beside me and this she did say: It will not be long my love 'til our wedding day."_  
  
Jack watched him then, couldn't help it, as the smile came up in the Time Lord's eyes, while they shone bright in the fire light with unshed tears. He sat down in silence and closed his eyes, and a single tear dropped away. Jack clutched at his hand and the Doctor clung to it tightly, as though it was the only thing in the Universe to hold on to. The crowd applauded him with a somber, almost apologetic tone. The Doctor nodded to them and his free hand came up over his eyes. Maybe they wouldn't be changing anything here, after all.  
  
"I'll never forget her, will I?" he asked.  
  
"No, and neither will I," whispered Jack back to him. "And that's a good thing. Because when everything is gone there'll be you and me and the memory of Rose Tyler."  
  
The golden-haired girl stood over them when they looked up. "That was a beautiful song," she told the Doctor softly.  
  
"Thank you, Angela," he said quietly, addressing the woman not by her name, but by the title given to all of her husband's kind — and to her, because she'd married him.  
  
"I'm sorry for your loss," her dark-haired, pale-winged husband added.  
  
"Yes," Jack answered for him. "Thank you."  
  
"You sing like an angel," she added.  
  
The Doctor smiled and turned his dark, haunted gaze up to hers. "No," he replied, "just like someone who lost one."

* * *


End file.
